Roughly six per cent of the world’s population is locatedwithin a 1,000-kilometre radius of the Czech capitalof Prague. The only regions where we find a highersettlement density are large-scale conurbations in Chinaand India, each of which is home to some 15 per centof mankind. What this means in effect is that Europeis the world’s third most important population centre.Europe’s cultural and political diversity, the rivalrybetween its rulers, states, and ethnic groups — thesewere the sources that fed into the continent’s economicand artistic development. Since the colonial period,emigrants and their descendants have found inspirationin the old continent, admired the achievements of itscivilization, imitated the fashions of its art and intellectualculture, for the most part without reaching the levelof the “original”.

However, Europe’s blessing, its diversity, has at thesame time been at the root of most of its conflicts.Centuries of discord and bloodshed show that a richcultural heritage offers little protection against violenceand self-destruction — and in the 20th century the continentbecame a problem case — first devastated by warand traumatized by genocide, then rent by ideologicaland real walls and barbed-wire demarcations.